Call for Applications: Winter Institute on “Urban, Ecological and Infrastructural Politics in SWANA”
The Urban Political in SWANA Research Network is soliciting applications from doctoral researchers and early career researchers for a Winter Institute on the theme “Urban, Ecological and Infrastructural Politics in SWANA.”
The Winter Institute is scheduled for 12-16 January 2026, and will be hosted by the Beirut Urban Lab, American University of Beirut.
The Research Network:
The Urban Political in SWANA Research Network was established in summer 2024 thanks to a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation in New York. It is incubated within the Critical Approaches to Development in the MENA Initiative at the American University of Beirut, and hosted by the Beirut Urban Lab at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture.
The Research Network is dedicated to producing an interdisciplinary research community and spaces for critical studies of urbanism and its ecologies in the SWANA region. The network is especially focused on producing spaces of mentorship for early career scholars of and from the region, as well as producing spaces for the public dissemination of work produced within the academy beyond traditional academic publishing venues. The Research Network is co-organised by Sarah El-Kazaz (SOAS), Mona Harb (AUB), Azadeh Mashayekhi (UCL), Noura Wahby (AUC) and Rafeef Ziadah (KCL).
The Winter Institute:
In line with that mission, the network is soliciting applications for its inaugural Winter Institute on “Urban, Ecological and Infrastructural Politics in SWANA” to take place in Beirut, Lebanon on February 2026 (dates TBC). The Institute aims to bring together doctoral researchers and early career scholars researching this theme for training and mentoring with a team of faculty members that includes but expands beyond the network’s co-organisers, who will provide sessions on a range of methodological and theoretical approaches. Sessions will interrogate theorizing ecology in built environments, political economies of urban and infrastructure development, resistance from the city and its ecology, interrogating urban “crisis” in an era of climate change, tracing connectivity, affect, materiality and urban sensoria as ethnographic sensibility, history and memory in the city, four dimensional (time +3D space) readings of the city, and exceptionalization as politics in SWANA, among other themes. The Institute will also include professional development sessions that range from discussions of ethical and practical fieldwork questions to trainings in academic and non-academic publishing and career advancement.
Finally, the Institute will include dedicated time and spaces for writing development. Participants are required to be developing a research project in line with the theme and are expected to develop one piece of writing related to the theme through the Institute. The Institute is organized such that there will be two online preparatory sessions (planned for June and October 2025) ahead of the 2026 workshop to ensure all participants have a writing piece ready for development at the Institute in Beirut, and there will be time at the Institute dedicated solely to writing development in groups led by a dedicated faculty mentor. Candidates from all research backgrounds with interest in this theme are welcome to apply including but not limited to: geography, urban planning, anthropology, history, sociology, politics, architecture, architectural history, economics, literary studies, development studies, and gender and sexuality studies.
Research themes:
The Institute is open to a wide array of research projects that work on themes under the rubric of “Urban, Ecological and Infrastructural Politics in SWANA” including but not limited to:
- Political economies of urban and infrastructural development
- Colonial legacies and urbanism
- Informality and urban governance
- Infrastructures and everyday life
- Infrastructures and actors of urban governance
- History and memory in cities, localities and regions
- War, crisis, disasters and its temporalities across geographies and landscapes
- Climate change as urban phenomenon
- Infrastructures of excess from energy to waste, to water, to renewables
- Architectural and urban planning/design translations and its politics
Eligibility:
The Institute is open to early career researchers from/in the SWANA region working within themes of “Urban, Ecological and Infrastructural Politics in SWANA.” Researchers are expected to be working towards a PhD degree or to have completed one within the last two years, but there are exceptions for researchers/activists of practice with ample experience in these fields and a developed research project.
Applicants are required to develop a research project of their own related to the Institute theme (whether current or past), even if it is at a preliminary stage. Interested researchers must submit a research proposal as part of their application that would be expected to develop into written work through the Institute as described above.
Travel and Accommodation:
Participants’ travel, transportation, accommodation, and meals will be fully covered for the duration of the Institute.
How to Apply:
Please email to [email protected] (Antonia Bahna, Manager, Beirut Urban Lab) the following in one pdf file:
- Academic CV
- 200 words on your interest in the institute
- 300 words abstract on proposed research project, with a short bibliography (4-5 key references)
Deadline for receiving applications: April 28, 2025
Decisions will be communicated to successful applicants only by mid-May 2025.